May is about my picture and children’s books – there is a write a book/script a day challenge for the first week of the month. It’s called NaPiBoWriWee and is actually more insane than the nanowrimo writing challenges

I have plenty of ideas for my picture books and zines so this is kind of a great way of actualising some of them

I am being slightly boring in that I am focusing on stories I kind of need finished for festival, workshops and my activity booklets anyway… but the plan is to kind of continue the challenge and actually spend this month working on my children’s stories and picture books (and yes there is actually a distinction between the two groups – they heavily over lap but not completely – so I have kids books with no pictures and picture books that are not aimed at kids!).

So for those who want to know this means I am working on:

1) The Origami Story Box – this is a series so as long as I get number one done I will then work on it until I get bored

2) Scripts for the Paper Pals Theatre – same as above really only these are scripts for making the puppets act!

3) Folded Friends – again another series and yes it involves the origami and paper craft creations but this one involves humans too

4) The Little Books – there is lots of finishing up to do for The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry like finally putting it on Amazon and making sure the audio is out, same with The Little Book of Festive Poetry, then The Little Book of Easter Poetry needs to be put together and zined and The Little Book of Baby Poetry needs recording and zining. There are also many many more that are written but not edited or illustrated so probably going to get bored before completion here as well

5) City Scum (might be Scum City I can never remember!) – this is Alaric’s role playing game and I need to finish the illustrations for it!

6) Activity Booklets – these are booklets I create to accompany workshops, they contain stories, games, facts and stuff to make and do. Main focus is Cuddly Science 2, Salaric’s Arty Activity Booklet, Funky Folding, Spring Time Activities and Summer Activities.

7) Colouring Books – finishing off my Myths colouring book, sorting some sort of year thing for Love: A Stranger Dream, finish the Autumn Colouring In Booklet and make a Spring and Summer version.

8) Admin stuff – sort out this blog which is my illustrations and kids books blog and in general sort out my art work and writing into easier archives for searching, sort more places to sell products etc…

9) Graphic Novels – I have unfinished The Punk Universe comics so getting them finished and planning out the other story lines

10) Zines and things – there is stuff waiting to be scanned, edited, printed, folded, stapled, and the Wiggly Pets blog needs some work on it.

This is obviously a lot of stuff which I doubt I’ll get through but it gives me clear goals and shows me exactly what there is to do

My only concern is that there is no room for random creation – but then that does have a tendency to just happen anyway so maybe that’s not a bad thing?

It’s that time of year again When I get down to some kids writing! I have now kind of lost track on how many of these I’ve done, I think I came in for number 2.

So what is NaPiBoWriWee? It’s a writing challenge and I love my writing challenges – a week of writing picture books but not just writing them but attempting to complete one rough draft a day!

It was set up by Paula Yoo, who’s blog often has lovely little snippets about the picture book world.

So what are my plans for this challenge this year?

I’m thinking I should start by looking through my archive of story ideas. I also have a lot of projects to finish off so I will be continuing the month with a finish picture books off challenge ie over all I want to have spent 30 hours on picture books this month.

I am also having a general finishing off writing projects month and I am already in the throws of Festival Season so it is going to be busy